


Stalled

by orphan_account



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Multi, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyo was smoking. His chapped lips bent around the cigarette like he was a careless lover, sucking and then releasing, small swirls of white escaping his nostrils while he held the poison inside. Sucking, releasing.<br/>And Die was watching, but not asking; it wasn't his place, but he was worried, and he knew from the nervous twitches in the younger's body that Kyo knew what he was thinking. There were half-cast glances, shifts and smoke-filled sighs, shivers in the cold spring air and when the cigarette left his lips, his tongue covered the rough skin as if to make sure it still remained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stalled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cadkitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/gifts).



Kyo was smoking. His chapped lips bent around the cigarette like he was a careless lover, sucking and then releasing, small swirls of white escaping his nostrils while he held the poison inside. Sucking, releasing.  
And Die was watching, but not asking; it wasn't his place, but he was worried, and he knew from the nervous twitches in the younger's body that Kyo knew what he was thinking. There were half-cast glances, shifts and smoke-filled sighs, shivers in the cold spring air and when the cigarette left his lips, his tongue covered the rough skin as if to make sure it still remained.  
Wind today was treacherous: it caressed Die's hair and neck like he was precious to it, but it was cold and bitter and nipped in passing, leaving him uncomfortable.

There were things that he wanted to say, of course. Some of them were angry, worried; others casually concerned, some almost teasing, delighted. None of those things came out, and Kyo kept glancing towards him but not at him, and he kept looking when he dared, swallowing thickly to the way the other's throat moved, the way his tongue made yet another circle over the lips that sealed away the secret to his sudden regression to his old ways.

Sucking, holding, releasing.

Die crossed his legs and sighed, finally lowering his gaze.  
His mind was full of uninvited images and he couldn't quite move. Studio had made his fingertips sore and he could still feel the heaviness, weariness of his brain; he needed air, he needed this time in the quiet of the bustling city, the early morning's pale brightness through the clouds that were raining softly upon the concrete below. Further away, a young woman was raising her voice, laughing and chattering, and a quieter voice replied, echoing past the corner of the building keeping them away. Die knew even without looking that Kyo's attention had been caught by that sound. It was the kind he loved chasing. The man resembled a wounded, grounded hawk trapped in an illusion of flight, eyes always keen upon the skies, thinking the blue was the ground and that all things flying were prey for his visions.

That darkness turned towards Die now, and Kyo chuckled.  
"Are you going to, or are you not?" the singer asked him with a characteristic crooked grin-smile.

Die raised his head slowly, lost; it took him a while to dare to look at the other, and when he had the contact to him, he shrugged.  
"I guess not," he said simply and turned to look at the parking lot again.

"I'm not going to mind."

"You don't want to share, is all," Die noted dryly.

It was Kyo's turn to shrug, and he sucked death through the cigarette one last time before letting it fall back down.  
"We're too old for this," he said to nobody in particular and turned, opened the door and left Die there alone.

Suddenly, the air was too cold to stay in, and the rain too heavy for comfort. The guitarist shivered, wet fingers slipping as he grabbed the door's handle and pulled. The air inside smelled of cigarettes more than the outdoors did. Kaoru had made a habit out of sticking it to the prohibition sign nailed to the wall. By now, if the yellow light would have allowed them to see, it was probably nicotine- and smoke-stained, all in the name of practical irony.

Die didn't want to keep working. All he wanted was to return to his bedroom, close all the doors and all the curtains and pretend he'd been buried alive, too exhausted to even think of getting up again, perhaps seeking friendship from the glass skin of Asahi instead where he felt the most safe and secure. Instead, he got the teeth of his guitar's strings pushing through the worn armour that his skin had become, and he tried to forget the sound of the heavy exhales, the scent that disappeared under a choking veil of smoke.

From where he'd settled, Kyo kept looking at him through the recording. Nobody had asked him to stay. He'd chosen to.

 

* * *

 

"You're not working hard enough."  
There wasn't blame in the older's voice. Kaoru was drowning in a cup of coffee and his eyes examined Die in a way that belonged to his friend, not his boss; certainly not the man that had stayed awake for 42 hours and thrown up in the bathroom half an hour ago because of the pain in his shoulders and neck. 

In response, Die simply glanced at him, trying to look brave and locked-up and productive and like a samurai warrior heading for the last battle. Instead, he managed to look tired. He'd only been here for thirteen hours. It was inexcusable.  
His eyes escaped towards Kyo - the singer had fallen asleep with a pen in hand, his notebook spread open like a dead creature upon the carpeted floor and his tablet underneath his spread inked palm on the other side of his abdomen. His thin legs were spread, one foot upon the back of the couch and the other straightened over the arm rest, and his shirt revealed a short stretch of skin, and it was not inked, it looked like human skin, warm and soft.  
The taste of blood in Die's mouth spoke more of supplements than of the manner he bit his lip, but he was biting his lip, and turning back towards Kaoru took more effort than it should have. 

The look on the older was grave, almost heavy enough to crush them all with the weight. Die swallowed and told himself the other was not a psychic, he could not read minds, but how obvious was it?  
  
"I'm not feeling it. I'm sorry," he said as if there was a conversation to keep up. 

The older sighed and leaned back in his seat.  
"Then maybe you should leave."  
There was the blame, the guilting, the _you're failing us and I can't stand to look at you anymore._ Die felt a sting of pain and nodded. 

"No, I'm good," he replied, "I'll do my best now. I'm sorry." 

Kaoru looked at him again, drinking his coffee and absent in the way that spoke of him zoning out, failing to concentrate. His lips glittered with moisture when he lowered the cup again and he blinked, sighed, laid down the coffee and rubbed his face.  
"I'll be in the bathroom," the man said with a voice of defeat and stood up, "try to get something done." 

Die didn't tell him he should go, get some sleep, eat something that wasn't instant ramen and maybe, just maybe, get laid. All of that he wanted to say, but most of all, he wanted to shout to him that Kyo was smoking, they were all falling apart, this wasn't working, Shinya wasn't answering his phone and Toshiya had fainted, that he was that close to dying where he now sat and Kaoru was an inch away from a heart attack himself, but all of that was perfectly normal - at least with the exception of Kyo's relapse.  
He'd been here a million times before, too tired to raise a hand and still somehow retaking, retaking, retaking, retaking, and he loved it, he did, but sometimes - just sometimes - how much weight he'd lost since they'd started pulling this album together? A pound, five, fifteen?  
Absently, his fingers slipped across his aching side, counting ribs. 

"He's right, you know," Kyo's voice suddenly spoke from the direction of the couch. 

Die's neck popped when he turned to look, shocked to find the other awake and not quite catching up to what he'd said before it had already planted that familiar ache of guilt in him. 

"I know," he simply said and stood up.  
He'd work some more and if he'd collapse then, at least he'd do it with an ounce of honour left to him.

 

* * *

 

Somehow, he got lost on the way back from the bar. He stumbled out of the taxi and tried to figure out what the hell had he been thinking when he'd stated the wrong address. It was four in the morning; somewhere, a dog barked into the clear night, and the scent of summer wafted from some place or the other into Die's dulled nose. He followed it and ended up standing, swaying, in front of the door, unable to push through and unable to turn back either.  
His finger trembled, failing the code twice; it wasn't his code. He remembered it better than his own code. 

The corridor echoed like a cave, and he felt like a whale in a tank, listening to his own messages as he climbed the stairs. By the second floor, his back hit the wall and he slid down, head against his knees, and he breathed in and out until the nausea ceased. He counted; after sleeping for two hours, getting drunk had been easier than he'd wanted it to be. He'd barely started drinking. He felt like throwing up. Maybe it wasn't the drink, maybe it was the drive, but he was hammered for the time being and not much else mattered. 

Kyo would be pleased. 

His chuckle echoed through the stairs and up and up and up, and he froze to the sound of someone's door closing; four in the morning, the proper people were heading for work. And here he was, not even employed where it mattered, an outcast, drunkenly sitting in a corridor, and the man passed him without a single glance, avoiding the shame of acknowledging his pitiful state.  
Die climbed up when he'd left the building, deciding it was better to embarrass someone he knew rather than the good people that he didn't. 

He knocked on the door gently, in his drunken state finding the doorbell an extremely rude way to wake up someone he shouldn't have been disturbing in the first place. If Kyo wouldn't hear it, that would be the sign from gods that he wasn't on the right path and he'd submit to that, walk out again and call a cab to get home. He just didn't want to be alone was all. Not anymore. The thought of his coffin of a bed froze all that liquid inside him and installed such a terror that he'd thought he'd rather sleep in the subway or at the studio than bury himself alive in his apartment.  
The quiet of the corridor remained unbroken now that the early man had left it to Die in its entirety, and in that quiet, both spring and summer were gone, replaced by the dusty smell of a cool stairway that many people used on a daily basis, like a school - it did remind the guitarist of school. He was half-asleep when the light flashed, and not all too long after, Kyo stood in front of him wearing loose grey pyjama pants, tattooed and kind of fuzzy-looking, not surprised nor offended nor bothered if Die could still trust his ability to read body language. He didn't think he could, so he apologised first. 

"Can I stay for the night?" he heard himself asking. 

The younger rolled his eyes and motioned him inside.  
"That's what I have the couch for." 

It was like stepping into a sanctuary. In all his unorthodoxy, Kyo was by far the most traditional man Die knew. His house was like a temple, decorated so that walking in felt like approaching something sacred. Die left his shoes by the door but did not step into a new pair; like the owner of the place, he walked in barefooted, even his socks staying inside his shoes. That was just the way things worked here.

"Can I get you something?" Kyo asked, like he was a welcome guest and not someone drunk barging in in the middle of the night against all good manners.

Die didn't want to say yes, but he had a craving, an urge, a _need_ , and Kyo seemed to sense it in the silence that still reigned once they entered the living room. The shorter turned around and they both stood in the larger-than-average apartment: unlike most people in Tokyo, Kyo wasn't crammed in a single room. Die didn't want to know how much he'd paid, but not because the price was too high, more of because he liked to think Kyo hadn't paid anything. It was part of the impression; that all of this was just Kyo. It wasn't a place he'd bought, it was a place he'd drifted to, like most other things in the younger's life. He was eccentric, and his eccentricity didn't stop at where the stage did.

Slowly, the older turned his eyes to the half-naked man in front of him and asked for tea.  
He could have sworn a smile crossed Kyo'd features but if it had been there at all, it was gone so soon it could have as well been hopeful thinking.

"Try not to fall asleep."

Die settled on a pillow on the floor, unable to convince himself that the ground wasn't swaying. Maybe it was. He hadn't ever experienced an earthquake in Kyo's apartment - they were high up enough for him to not have a good guess if it would feel like this or if it would be a terrifying experience, at least not when he had no understanding of the way the building was constructed. If it _was_ an earthquake, then it was one that could somehow feel almost like a soothing experience.  
  
It probably wasn't an earthquake.  
  
Unthinking, the guitarist pulled out a stick of incense and lit it, the holder into which he'd planted it already stained with the ashes of many that had burnt before it. He watched it burn lower and tried not to think of the cigarette, so of course he was thinking about the cigarette, and when Kyo handed him a cup of tea, he was _still_ thinking about the cigarette.

"Why'd you smoke?" he asked now.

Kyo shrugged.  
"Felt like it."

It was impossible to tell if he'd truly just "felt like it", or if there was a deeper meaning. That was exactly the problem with Kyo. He never just felt like something, but on the other hand, everything he did was just because he'd felt like it.  
  
They drank in silence, and Die didn't have to try to enjoy it. This was one of the greatest things in his life, to come here and end up sharing a cup of sencha in the middle of the night, saying nothing, in Kyo's company.  
  
Finally, the other budged, turning his head down and smiling wearily.   
"It's happening again," he continued, getting to the part that explained why'd he _just felt like_ something, "I'm falling in love." 

Die's brows raised, and he was surprised to find, although he was looking for it, no pain whatsoever where he still was quite sure his heart resided. The younger glanced at him, looking for the honesty of a drunken man, and satisfaction spread into his gaze when he found it. He nodded, sipped his tea and laid the cup on the low table that separated them.  
  
"Of course, it's one-sided. Everything I need is there. She's beautiful, like the sunrise, and I'm just watching." 

Die nodded. He'd had a few sunrises in his life. They grew to noons and dimmed to evenings, and the night that followed was bittersweet, almost unbearably so. His tea was bitter too, like the cold wind the previous morning or the smoke of that cigarette. He was happy here, even despite Kyo's newest attraction, perhaps also because of it. It was hard to tell. The man had these relationships once or twice a year. He'd never been one to settle down, and relationships made him feel anxious, chained. His love flourished when it was left unnoticed and unanswered, when it was free and attached to an ideal, not a real person, choosing the flaws it could cherish and ignoring those it couldn't. Sometimes, the climax of these loves was the physical experience: he'd make love to the one he desired, and then released her, keeping nothing but the memory of her scent and touch with him. At other times, it was the slow burn of longing, a fantasy that lived until it lost its appeal. 

"Is she married?" Die asked out of a habit.  
Kyo nodded.  
This would be one of the long-lasting ones, a candle's flame rather than a wildfire. Die relaxed.  
"I'm sorry," he said although he wasn't. 

Kyo smiled; he knew the other wasn't sorry, but they followed a pattern here.  
"So," he spoke after a minute and a small sip of tea, "do you expect to be sick?" 

Die shook his head.  
"Tired," he said with a shrug.  
"Just tired." 

Kyo nodded again.  
"I'll wake you up in the morning."

 

* * *

 

Tokyo daylight through the overcast sky was as pale as the previous morning had been, and as Die struggled up and across the living room to the kitchen's side, he could hear rain against the windows. Kyo sat by the table, flipping through a pile of letters - some looked like bills, and one cast aside on the table was a stalker letter sent to his previous apartment and redirected here.  
Die snatched that, sending it across the table to where he intended to sit, and poured himself a cup of coffee. Kyo didn't argue; the man was barely paying attention to him at all. 

He looked beautiful in the white sunlight, although it was clear he'd slept deeply and cut back some debts while at it; his eyes were swollen but not in a way that made him less attractive, rather, he looked tired and squinty, like none of what he was holding mattered to him at all. Die suspected, although telling by the expression alone would have been less than reliable, that such was indeed the true state of things.  
The older sat down with his cup of coffee and opened the letter. 

"Is it written in blood?" 

"Huh?" 

Kyo raised his eyes and bit his lower lip in passing. Then he flashed a grin.  
"I asked you if it's written in blood." 

Die cast a disturbed look at the letter but it looked normal enough, aside from the writer assuming Kyo was currently planning to marry her.  
"No," he replied truthfully, "It's black ink." 

The singer nodded and returned to opening another letter, appearing satisfied with the answer in a manner that made Die uncomfortable: it hadn't been a joking, rhetoric question. The girl didn't appear to be one to write in blood - if they took that path, they stuck to that path, he'd been there before - but clearly Kyo expected her to switch inks at some point. 

The letter was signed _Lady_ \- in English - and Die wondered if the writer was Japanese. He was still eyeing the kanji as he sipped his coffee, but at the end of it after a second read-through he laid it back down on the table as uninformed as ever.

"You could tell them not to redirect," he said then, as if Kyo didn't know that.

"She's counting on me," Kyo replied with a shrug.  
"Counting on the _kami_ to carry her through. Who am I to slip from that responsibility?" 

Die took another glance at the letter and shivered.  
"Kyo." 

"Dai-san?"

"Thank you for taking me in."

"You're welcome."  
The papers slid from between Kyo's fingers and he licked the tips before picking the up from the table and his lap.  
"Thank you for the company." 

They fell into a silence like a symphony, breaks only where the papers shuffled or Die's lips anxiously drew in a raspy sip from his hot drink. Rain was picking up again; it was typical for the season but somehow the gloomy grey and white of it made everything colourless and depressing. After a moment Kyo piled up the post and took a torn notebook page from on top of the dictionary laid across the corner of the table. He bent it back in shape, the crumbled corner first and last although it never tamed under his touch, and handed it to Die.  
"Could you look through that for me? Tell me if I've written it before." 

Die accepted, mouth full of coffee; he read it through and nodded.  
"It's Glass Skin, save a few lines." 

"Could you show me which ones?" 

The guitarist's fingertips slid across the bottom verse, marking two rows with invisible lines. 

"Thank you."  
Kyo took the paper from him and crumbled it.  
"I'll reuse them." 

Die smiled before downing the rest of his cup. His feet felt heavy when he moved in for a refill.  
In the nights, he was a stranger, but in the mornings, it was as if he'd lived there for years. When he first walked through the door he would have never in a thousand years felt he was allowed anywhere near the kitchen, much less to serve his own drinks without asking, but when he woke up, he owned everything his fingers landed on.  
A throb inside his head told him he was hungover, and a throb in his neck told him he'd been working. Physical pain was his notebook. His stomach growled. 

"When did you last fall in love?" Kyo asked him, voice dulled as it hit the window in the opposite direction from where Die had now finished pouring coffee.

The taller turned around and laid his back against the counter, thinking; he realised he wasn't surprised by the question, it felt like it naturally attached to a conversation that had been paused the previous night some eight hours ago in full.  
"It's been a while," he finally said.

"Years?" Kyo asked him, examining his reflection upon the window. 

Die nodded.  
It wasn't that straightforward. He'd fallen in love years ago, none of that was false, but the question implied an ending, a loss of love sometime after that, and that part wasn't true. He was still in love, and he'd accepted he might be until the day he'd die, even if it was inconvenient and something he'd never feel returned. His eyes scanned the younger settled so carelessly at the table, elbow sliding further along its surface and wrist pressed against his chin, waist pointing to Die's direction along with his knees even as his shoulders faced the table and his face the window. As he watched, Kyo's pose straightened and turned until he was facing Die in full, an examining look on him as if he'd been searching for something.

"You're looking, right? For someone."

Die nodded again.  
The smile that crossed his lips wasn't happy, but it wasn't sad either. It was emotionless, dull, enigmatic like that of Mona Lisa's. He'd seen Mona Lisa. Her mystery didn't touch him. 

"And you'd like that to be... You'd like for her to love you in return."

The third nod started seeming like pointless repetition.  
Die sighed and laid down the cup, palms taking hold of the counter's edge as he looked at Kyo and wondered how much he was willing to say, and how much Kyo was willing to hear.  
These games wore him thin sometimes.  
It was like being seated with Sigmund Freud. 

"You'd like her to be me, wouldn't you." 

The quiet that followed was long and oddly frozen, as if everything around Die was still moving on, but he himself had suddenly gotten caught in a single moment that repeated itself endlessly. Then, slowly, he broke out of it and opened his mouth although no sounds came out. Kyo smiled and nodded and turned away, reaching up for a clean cup to fill up.  
The sound of him pouring coffee into it made Die feel slightly nauseous, as if it had been all he'd needed to let the panic free. 

"Sometimes, Dai..."  
Kyo's voice trailed off and he stared out of the window at Tokyo, not towards Die at all but directly past him as if he wasn't present in the room at all.  
"Sometimes, I get curious. Sometimes I wish I knew how to stay. Sometimes I think I'm brave enough; that tomorrow, I'll be strong enough, too."  
He nodded as if to agree with himself. Die still stared.  
"And one day, I will be." 

Their eyes locked. The clock on the wall ticked forwards four seconds; Kyo was smiling. 

"And you know that you don't have to wait for me."


End file.
